Arie Blumenfeld is a second-generation Holocaust survivor. His father, Samuel Blumenfeld, was only 13 when World War II broke out. He survived several labor and concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau, Jawiszowice, and Buchenwald.

As a lifelong educator, Arie visited Poland numerous times with his father as a living testimony of the Holocaust. Their continuous father-son dialogue is immortalized in their book The Survivor from Block 19.